Love and mr lewisham

Lewisham thought little of Love but much onGreatness.. “I can assure you,” he said, now very earnestly, “I never give a punishment, never, unless it is merited.. “Good-bye,” she said, an

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LOVE AND MR LEWISHAM

CHAPTER XXX — A WITHDRAWAL

CHAPTER XXXI — IN BATTERSEA PARK

CHAPTER XXXII — THE CROWNING VICTORY

The opening chapter does not concern itself with Love—indeed thatantagonist does not certainly appear until the third—and Mr Lewisham is seen

at his studies It was ten years ago, and in those days he was assistant master inthe Whortley Proprietary School, Whortley, Sussex, and his wages were fortypounds a year, out of which he had to afford fifteen shillings a week during termtime to lodge with Mrs Munday, at the little shop in the West Street He wascalled “Mr.” to distinguish him from the bigger boys, whose duty it was to learn,and it was a matter of stringent regulation that he should be addressed as “Sir.”

He wore ready-made clothes, his black jacket of rigid line was dusted aboutthe front and sleeves with scholastic chalk, and his face was downy and hismoustache incipient He was a passable-looking youngster of eighteen, fair-haired, indifferently barbered, and with a quite unnecessary pair of glasses on hisfairly prominent nose—he wore these to make himself look older, that disciplinemight be maintained At the particular moment when this story begins he was inhis bedroom An attic it was, with lead-framed dormer windows, a slantingceiling and a bulging wall, covered, as a number of torn places witnessed, withinnumerable strata of florid old-fashioned paper

To judge by the room Mr Lewisham thought little of Love but much onGreatness Over the head of the bed, for example, where good folks hang texts,these truths asserted themselves, written in a clear, bold, youthfully florid hand:

—“Knowledge is Power,” and “What man has done man can do,”—man in thesecond instance referring to Mr Lewisham Never for a moment were thesethings to be forgotten Mr Lewisham could see them afresh every morning as hishead came through his shirt And over the yellow-painted box upon which—for

lack of shelves—Mr Lewisham’s library was arranged, was a “Schema.” (Why

he should not have headed it “Scheme,” the editor of the Church Times, who calls his miscellaneous notes “Varia,” is better able to say than I.) In this scheme,

1892 was indicated as the year in which Mr Lewisham proposed to take his B.A.degree at the London University with “hons in all subjects,” and 1895 as thedate of his “gold medal.” Subsequently there were to be “pamphlets in theLiberal interest,” and such like things duly dated “Who would control othersmust first control himself,” remarked the wall over the wash-hand stand, andbehind the door against the Sunday trousers was a portrait of Carlyle

These were no mere threats against the universe; operations had begun.Jostling Shakespeare, Emerson’s Essays, and the penny Life of Confucius, therewere battered and defaced school books, a number of the excellent manuals ofthe Universal Correspondence Association, exercise books, ink (red and black)

in penny bottles, and an india-rubber stamp with Mr Lewisham’s name Atrophy of bluish green South Kensington certificates for geometrical drawing,astronomy, physiology, physiography, and inorganic chemistry adorned hisfurther wall And against the Carlyle portrait was a manuscript list of Frenchirregular verbs

Attached by a drawing-pin to the roof over the wash-hand stand, which—theroom being an attic—sloped almost dangerously, dangled a Time-Table Mr.Lewisham was to rise at five, and that this was no vain boasting, a cheapAmerican alarum clock by the books on the box witnessed The lumps of mellowchocolate on the papered ledge by the bed-head indorsed that evidence “Frenchuntil eight,” said the time-table curtly Breakfast was to be eaten in twentyminutes; then twenty-five minutes of “literature” to be precise, learning extracts(preferably pompous) from the plays of William Shakespeare—and then toschool and duty The time-table further prescribed Latin Composition for therecess and the dinner hour (“literature,” however, during the meal), and varied itsinjunctions for the rest of the twenty-four hours according to the day of theweek Not a moment for Satan and that “mischief still” of his Only three-scoreand ten has the confidence, as well as the time, to be idle

But just think of the admirable quality of such a scheme! Up and busy at five,with all the world about one horizontal, warm, dreamy-brained or stupidlyhullish, if roused, roused only to grunt and sigh and roll over again into oblivion

By eight three hours’ clear start, three hours’ knowledge ahead of everyone Ittakes, I have been told by an eminent scholar, about a thousand hours of sincerework to learn a language completely—after three or four languages much less—which gives you, even at the outset, one each a year before breakfast The gift oftongues—picked up like mushrooms! Then that “literature”—an astonishingconception! In the afternoon mathematics and the sciences Could anything besimpler or more magnificent? In six years Mr Lewisham will have his five or sixlanguages, a sound, all-round education, a habit of tremendous industry, and bestill but four-and-twenty He will already have honour in his university andampler means One realises that those pamphlets in the Liberal interests will be

no obscure platitudes Where Mr Lewisham will be at thirty stirs theimagination There will be modifications of the Schema, of course, as experience

He was sitting facing the diamond-framed window, writing, writing fast, on asecond yellow box that was turned on end and empty, and the lid was open, andhis knees were conveniently stuck into the cavity The bed was strewn withbooks and copygraphed sheets of instructions from his remote correspondencetutors Pursuant to the dangling time-table he was, you would have noticed,translating Latin into English

Imperceptibly the speed of his writing diminished “Urit me Glycerae nitor”

lay ahead and troubled him “Urit me,” he murmured, and his eyes travelledfrom his book out of window to the vicar’s roof opposite and its ivied chimneys

His brows were knit at first and then relaxed “Urit me!” He had put his pen into his mouth and glanced about for his dictionary Urare?

Suddenly his expression changed Movement dictionary-ward ceased He waslistening to a light tapping sound—it was a footfall—outside

He stood up abruptly, and, stretching his neck, peered through his unnecessaryglasses and the diamond panes down into the street Looking acutely downward

he could see a hat daintily trimmed with pinkish white blossom, the shoulder of

a jacket, and just the tips of nose and chin Certainly the stranger who sat underthe gallery last Sunday next the Frobishers Then, too, he had seen her onlyobliquely

He watched her until she passed beyond the window frame He strained to seeimpossibly round the corner

Then he started, frowned, took his pen from his mouth “This wanderingattention!” he said “The slightest thing! Where was I? Tcha!” He made a noisewith his teeth to express his irritation, sat down, and replaced his knees in theupturned box “Urit me,” he said, biting the end of his pen and looking for hisdictionary

It was a Wednesday half-holiday late in March, a spring day glorious in amberlight, dazzling white clouds and the intensest blue, casting a powder ofwonderful green hither and thither among the trees and rousing all the birds totumultuous rejoicings, a rousing day, a clamatory insistent day, a veritable herald

of summer The stir of that anticipation was in the air, the warm earth wasparting above the swelling seeds, and all the pine-woods were full of the minutecrepitation of opening bud scales And not only was the stir of Mother Nature’s

awakening in the earth and the air and the trees, but also in Mr Lewisham’syouthful blood, bidding him rouse himself to live—live in a sense quite otherthan that the Schema indicated.

He saw the dictionary peeping from under a paper, looked up “Urit me,”appreciated the shining “nitor” of Glycera’s shoulders, and so fell idle again torouse himself abruptly

“I can’t fix my attention,” said Mr Lewisham He took off the needless

glasses, wiped them, and blinked his eyes This confounded Horace and hisstimulating epithets! A walk?

“I won’t be beat,” he said—incorrectly—replaced his glasses, brought hiselbows down on either side of his box with resonant violence, and clutched thehair over his ears with both hands

In five minutes’ time he found himself watching the swallows curving throughthe blue over the vicarage garden

“Did ever man have such a bother with himself as me?” he asked vaguely butvehemently “It’s self-indulgence does it—sitting down’s the beginning oflaziness.”

So he stood up to his work, and came into permanent view of the villagestreet “If she has gone round the corner by the post office, she will come in sightover the palings above the allotments,” suggested the unexplored andundisciplined region of Mr Lewisham’s mind

She did not come into sight Apparently she had not gone round by the postoffice after all It made one wonder where she had gone Did she go up throughthe town to the avenue on these occasions? Then abruptly a cloud drove acrossthe sunlight, the glowing street went cold and Mr Lewisham’s imagination

submitted to control So “Mater saeva cupidinum,” “The untamable mother of

desires,”—Horace (Book II of the Odes) was the author appointed by theuniversity for Mr Lewisham’s matriculation—was, after all, translated to itsprophetic end

Precisely as the church clock struck five Mr Lewisham, with a punctualitythat was indeed almost too prompt for a really earnest student, shut his Horace,took up his Shakespeare, and descended the narrow, curved, uncarpeted staircasethat led from his garret to the living room in which he had his tea with his

landlady, Mrs Munday That good lady was alone, and after a few civilities Mr.Lewisham opened his Shakespeare and read from a mark onward—that mark,by-the-bye, was in the middle of a scene—while he consumed mechanically anumber of slices of bread and whort jam.

Mrs Munday watched him over her spectacles and thought how bad so muchreading must be for the eyes, until the tinkling of her shop-bell called her away

sill, dashed a few crumbs from his jacket, assumed a mortar-board cap that waslying on the tea-caddy, and went forth to his evening “preparation duty.”

to a customer At twenty-five minutes to six he put the book back in the window-The West Street was empty and shining golden with the sunset Its beautyseized upon him, and he forgot to repeat the passage from Henry VIII thatshould have occupied him down the street Instead he was presently thinking ofthat insubordinate glance from his window and of little chins and nose-tips Hiseyes became remote in their expression

The school door was opened by an obsequious little boy with “lines” to beexamined

Mr Lewisham felt a curious change of atmosphere on his entry The doorslammed behind him The hall with its insistent scholastic suggestions, itsyellow marbled paper, its long rows of hat-pegs, its disreputable array of

umbrellas, a broken mortar-board and a tattered and scattered Principia, seemed

dim and dull in contrast with the luminous stir of the early March eveningoutside An unusual sense of the greyness of a teacher’s life, of the greynessindeed of the life of all studious souls came, and went in his mind He took the

“lines,” written painfully over three pages of exercise book, and obliterated themwith a huge G.E.L., scrawled monstrously across each page He heard thefamiliar mingled noises of the playground drifting in to him through the openschoolroom door

A flaw in that pentagram of a time-table, that pentagram by which the demons

of distraction were to be excluded from Mr Lewisham’s career to Greatness, wasthe absence of a clause forbidding study out of doors It was the day after thetrivial window peeping of the last chapter that this gap in the time-table becameapparent, a day if possible more gracious and alluring than its predecessor, and athalf-past twelve, instead of returning from the school directly to his lodging, Mr.Lewisham escaped through the omission and made his way—Horace in pocket

—to the park gates and so to the avenue of ancient trees that encircles the broadWhortley domain He dismissed a suspicion of his motive with perfect success

In the avenue—for the path is but little frequented—one might expect to readundisturbed The open air, the erect attitude, are surely better than sitting in astuffy, enervating bedroom The open air is distinctly healthy, hardy, simple The day was breezy, and there was a perpetual rustling, a going and coming inthe budding trees

The network of the beeches was full of golden sunlight, and all the lowerbranches were shot with horizontal dashes of new-born green

“Tu, nisi ventis

Debes ludibrium, cave.”

was the appropriate matter of Mr Lewisham’s thoughts, and he wasmechanically trying to keep the book open in three places at once, at the text, thenotes, and the literal translation, while he turned up the vocabulary for

ludibrium, when his attention, wandering dangerously near the top of the page,

fell over the edge and escaped with incredible swiftness down the avenue

A girl, wearing a straw hat adorned with white blossom, was advancingtowards him Her occupation, too, was literary Indeed, she was so busy writingthat evidently she did not perceive him

Unreasonable emotions descended upon Mr Lewisham—emotions that areunaccountable on the mere hypothesis of a casual meeting Something waswhispered; it sounded suspiciously like “It’s her!” He advanced with his fingers

in his book, ready to retreat to its pages if she looked up, and watched her over

it Ludibrium passed out of his universe She was clearly unaware of his

nearness, he thought, intent upon her writing, whatever that might be Hewondered what it might be Her face, foreshortened by her downward regard,seemed infantile Her fluttering skirt was short, and showed her shoes andankles He noted her graceful, easy steps A figure of health and lightness it was,sunlit, and advancing towards him, something, as he afterwards recalled with acertain astonishment, quite outside the Schema.

Nearer she came and nearer, her eyes still downcast He was full of vague,stupid promptings towards an uncalled-for intercourse It was curious she did notsee him He began to expect almost painfully the moment when she would look

up, though what there was to expect—! He thought of what she would see whenshe discovered him, and wondered where the tassel of his cap might be hanging

—it sometimes occluded one eye It was of course quite impossible to put up ahand and investigate He was near trembling with excitement His paces, actswhich are usually automatic, became uncertain and difficult One might havethought he had never passed a human being before Still nearer, ten yards now,nine, eight Would she go past without looking up?

Then their eyes met

She had hazel eyes, but Mr Lewisham, being quite an amateur about eyes,could find no words for them She looked demurely into his face She seemed tofind nothing there She glanced away from him among the trees, and passed, andnothing remained in front of him but an empty avenue, a sunlit, green-shot void.The incident was over

From far away the soughing of the breeze swept towards him, and in amoment all the twigs about him were quivering and rustling and the boughscreaking with a gust of wind It seemed to urge him away from her The fadeddead leaves that had once been green and young sprang up, raced one another,leapt, danced and pirouetted, and then something large struck him on the neck,stayed for a startling moment, and drove past him up the avenue

Something vividly white! A sheet of paper—the sheet upon which she hadbeen writing!

For what seemed a long time he did not grasp the situation He glanced overhis shoulder and understood suddenly His awkwardness vanished Horace inhand, he gave chase, and in ten paces had secured the fugitive document Heturned towards her, flushed with triumph, the quarry in his hand He had as he

picked it up seen what was written, but the situation dominated him for theinstant He made a stride towards her, and only then understood what he hadseen Lines of a measured length and capitals! Could it really be—? He stopped.

He looked again, eyebrows rising He held it before him, staring now quitefrankly It had been written with a stylographic pen Thus it ran:—

if she had betrayed him That of course was only for the instant

She had come up with him now “May I have my sheet of paper, please?” shesaid with a catching of her breath She was a couple of inches less in height than

to the business of the imposition “You ought not to have done that,” he said,encountering her steadfastly

She looked down and then into his face again “No,” she said “I suppose Iought not to I’m very sorry.”

Her looking down and up again produced another unreasonable effect Itseemed to Lewisham that they were discussing something quite other than thetopic of their conversation; a persuasion patently absurd and only to beaccounted for by the general disorder of his faculties He made a serious attempt

to keep his footing of reproof

“I should have detected the writing, you know.”

“Of course you would It was very wrong of me to persuade him But I did—Iassure you He seemed in such trouble And I thought—”

She made another break, and there was a faint deepening of colour in hercheeks Suddenly, stupidly, his own adolescent cheeks began to glow It becamenecessary to banish that sense of a duplicate topic forthwith

“I can assure you,” he said, now very earnestly, “I never give a punishment,

never, unless it is merited I make that a rule I—er—always make that a rule I

am very careful indeed.”

“Oh no,” said Mr Lewisham, perceiving an opportunity and trying not tosmile his appreciation of what he was saying “I had no business to read this as Ipicked it up—absolutely no business Consequently ”

The pause lengthened She glanced over her shoulder down the vacant avenue.This interview—this momentous series of things unsaid was coming to an end!She looked at him hesitatingly and smiled again She held out her hand Nodoubt that was the proper thing to do He took it, searching a void, tumultuousmind in vain.

“It’s awfully kind of you,” she said again as she did so

“It don’t matter a bit,” said Mr Lewisham, and sought vainly for some othersaying, some doorway remark into new topics Her hand was cool and soft andfirm, the most delightful thing to grasp, and this observation ousted all otherthings He held it for a moment, but nothing would come

They discovered themselves hand in hand They both laughed and felt “silly.”They shook hands in the manner of quite intimate friends, and snatched theirhands away awkwardly She turned, glanced timidly at him over her shoulder,and hesitated “Good-bye,” she said, and was suddenly walking from him

He bowed to her receding back, made a seventeenth-century sweep with hiscollege cap, and then some hitherto unexplored regions of his mind flashed intorevolt

Hardly had she gone six paces when he was at her side again

“I say,” he said with a fearful sense of his temerity, and raising his board awkwardly as though he was passing a funeral “But that sheet of paper ”

mortar-“Yes,” she said surprised—quite naturally

“May I have it?”

He felt a breathless pleasure, like that of sliding down a slope of snow “Iwould like to have it.”

She smiled and raised her eyebrows, but his excitement was now too great forsmiling “Look here!” she said, and displayed the sheet crumpled into a ball Shelaughed—with a touch of effort

“I really must be going,” she said suddenly, breaking the spell by an effort.

She turned about and left him with the crumpled piece of paper in the fist thatheld the book, the other hand lifting the mortar board in a dignified salute again

He watched her receding figure His heart was beating with remarkablerapidity How light, how living she seemed! Little round flakes of sunlight raceddown her as she went She walked fast, then slowly, looking sideways once ortwice, but not back, until she reached the park gates Then she looked towardshim, a remote friendly little figure, made a gesture of farewell, and disappeared.His face was flushed and his eyes bright Curiously enough, he was out ofbreath He stared for a long time at the vacant end of the avenue Then he turnedhis eyes to his trophy gripped against the closed and forgotten Horace in hishand

DISCOVERY.

On Sunday it was Lewisham’s duty to accompany the boarders twice tochurch The boys sat in the gallery above the choirs facing the organ loft and atright angles to the general congregation It was a prominent position, and madehim feel painfully conspicuous, except in moods of exceptional vanity, when heused to imagine that all these people were thinking how his forehead and hiscertificates accorded He thought a lot in those days of his certificates andforehead, but little of his honest, healthy face beneath it (To tell the truth therewas nothing very wonderful about his forehead.) He rarely looked down thechurch, as he fancied to do so would be to meet the collective eye of thecongregation regarding him So that in the morning he was not able to see thatthe Frobishers’ pew was empty until the litany

But in the evening, on the way to church, the Frobishers and their guestcrossed the market-square as his string of boys marched along the west side Andthe guest was arrayed in a gay new dress, as if it was already Easter, and her faceset in its dark hair came with a strange effect of mingled freshness andfamiliarity She looked at him calmly! He felt very awkward, and was for cuttinghis new acquaintance Then hesitated, and raised his hat with a jerk as if to Mrs.Frobisher Neither lady acknowledged his salute, which may possibly have been

a little unexpected Then young Siddons dropped his hymn-book; stooped topick it up, and Lewisham almost fell over him He entered church in a mood ofblack despair

But consolation of a sort came soon enough As she took her seat she

distinctly glanced up at the gallery, and afterwards as he knelt to pray he peepedbetween his fingers and saw her looking up again She was certainly notlaughing at him

In those days much of Lewisham’s mind was still an unknown land to him Hebelieved among other things that he was always the same consistent intelligenthuman being, whereas under certain stimuli he became no longer reasonable anddisciplined but a purely imaginative and emotional person Music, for instance,carried him away, and particularly the effect of many voices in unison whirledhim off from almost any state of mind to a fine massive emotionality And the

—the chanting and singing, the vague brilliance of the numerous candle flames,the multitudinous unanimity of the congregation down there, kneeling, rising,thunderously responding, invariably inebriated him Inspired him, if you will,and turned the prose of his life into poetry And Chance, coming to the aid ofDame Nature, dropped just the apt suggestion into his now highly responsive ear.The second hymn was a simple and popular one, dealing with the theme ofFaith, Hope, and Charity, and having each verse ending with the word “Love.”Conceive it, long drawn out and disarticulate,—

Love! The greatest of these The greatest of all things Better than fame Betterthan knowledge So came the great discovery like a flood across his mind,pouring over it with the cadence of the hymn and sending a tide of pink insympathy across his forehead The rest of the service was phantasmagorialbackground to that great reality—a phantasmagorial background a little inclined

to stare He, Mr Lewisham, was in Love

“A men.” He was so preoccupied that he found the whole congregationsubsiding into their seats, and himself still standing, rapt He sat downspasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him to re-echo through the church

As they came out of the porch into the thickening night, he seemed to see hereverywhere He fancied she had gone on in front, and he hurried up the boys inthe hope of overtaking her They pushed through the throng of dim people goinghomeward Should he raise his hat to her again? But it was Susie Hopbrow in alight-coloured dress—a raven in dove’s plumage He felt a curious mixture ofrelief and disappointment He would see her no more that night

He hurried from the school to his lodging He wanted very urgently to bealone He went upstairs to his little room and sat before the upturned box on

He took out of his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothed and carefullyrefolded, covered with a writing not unlike that of Frobisher ii., and after somemaidenly hesitation pressed this treasure to his lips The Schema and the time-table hung in the darkness like the mere ghosts of themselves

Mrs Munday called him thrice to his supper

He went out immediately after it was eaten and wandered under the stars until

he came over the hill behind the town again, and clambered up the back to thestile in sight of the Frobishers’ house He selected the only lit window as hers.Behind the blind, Mrs Frobisher, thirty-eight, was busy with her curl-papers—she used papers because they were better for the hair—and discussing certainneighbours in a fragmentary way with Mr Frobisher, who was in bed Presentlyshe moved the candle to examine a faint discolouration of her complexion thatrendered her uneasy

Outside, Mr Lewisham (eighteen) stood watching the orange oblong for thebest part of half an hour, until it vanished and left the house black and blank.Then he sighed deeply and returned home in a very glorious mood indeed

He awoke the next morning feeling extremely serious, but not clearlyremembering the overnight occurrences His eye fell on his clock The time wassix and he had not heard the alarum; as a matter of fact the alarum had not beenwound up He jumped out of bed at once and alighted upon his best trousersamorphously dropped on the floor instead of methodically cast over a chair As

he soaped his head he tried, according to his rules of revision, to remember theovernight reading He could not for the life of him The truth came to him as hewas getting into his shirt His head, struggling in its recesses, becamemotionless, the handless cuffs ceased to dangle for a minute

Then his head came through slowly with a surprised expression upon his face

He remembered He remembered the thing as a bald discovery, and without atouch of emotion With all the achromatic clearness, the unromanticcolourlessness of the early morning

Yes He had it now quite distinctly There had been no overnight reading Hewas in Love

a space, and then began looking about absent-mindedly for his collar-stud Hepaused in front of his Schema, regarding it

“Work must be done anyhow,” said Mr Lewisham

But never had the extraordinary advantages of open-air study presentedthemselves so vividly Before breakfast he took half an hour of open-air readingalong the allotments lane near the Frobishers’ house, after breakfast and beforeschool he went through the avenue with a book, and returned from school to hislodgings circuitously through the avenue, and so back to the avenue for thirtyminutes or so before afternoon school When Mr Lewisham was not lookingover the top of his book during these periods of open-air study, then commonly

he was glancing over his shoulder And at last who should he see but—!

He saw her out of the corner of his eye, and he turned away at once,pretending not to have seen her His whole being was suddenly irradiated withemotion The hands holding his book gripped it very tightly He did not glanceback again, but walked slowly and steadfastly, reading an ode that he could nothave translated to save his life, and listening acutely for her approach And after

an interminable time, as it seemed, came a faint footfall and the swish of skirtsbehind him

“Do you often come here?” she said

“Well,” he considered—and his voice was most unreasonably hoarse when hespoke—“no No That is—At least not often Now and then In fact, I like itrather for reading and that sort of thing It’s so quiet.”

“So do I,” said Mr Lewisham, “for the matter of that Have you read .Carlyle?”

The conversation was now fairly under way They were walking side by sidebeneath the swaying boughs Mr Lewisham’s sensations were ecstatic, marred

only by a dread of some casual boy coming upon them She had not read much

Carlyle She had always wanted to, even from quite a little girl—she had heard

so much about him She knew he was a Really Great Writer, a very Great Writer indeed All she had read of him she liked She could say that As much as she

in Clapham He instantly forgot the vague design of lending her his “Sartor

Resartus” in his curiosity to learn more about her home “Clapham—that’s

almost in London, isn’t it?” he said

“Quite,” she said, but she volunteered no further information about herdomestic circumstances, “I like London,” she generalised, “and especially inwinter.” And she proceeded to praise London, its public libraries, its shops, themultitudes of people, the facilities for “doing what you like,” the concerts onecould go to, the theatres (It seemed she moved in fairly good society.) “There’salways something to see even if you only go out for a walk,” she said, “anddown here there’s nothing to read but idle novels And those not new.”

Mr Lewisham had regretfully to admit the lack of such culture and mentalactivity in Whortley It made him feel terribly her inferior He had only hisbookishness and his certificates to set against it all—and she had seen Carlyle’shouse! “Down here,” she said, “there’s nothing to talk about but scandal.” It wastoo true

At the corner by the stile, beyond which the willows were splendid against theblue with silvery aments and golden pollen, they turned by mutual impulse andretraced their steps “I’ve simply had no one to talk to down here,” she said

social organisation which objects very strongly inter alia to promiscuous

conversation on the part of the young unmarried junior master

“—chance to meet again, perhaps,” said Mr Lewisham, with a sudden lack ofspirit

Pause Mr Bonover’s features, and particularly a bushy pair of blackeyebrows, were now very near, those eyebrows already raised, apparently toexpress a refined astonishment

“Is this Mr Bonover approaching?” she asked

“Yes.”

Prolonged pause

Would he stop and accost them? At any rate this frightful silence must end

Mr Lewisham sought in his mind for some remark wherewith to cover hisemployer’s approach He was surprised to find his mind a desert He made acolossal effort If they could only talk, if they could only seem at their ease! Butthis blank incapacity was eloquent of guilt Ah!

“It’s a lovely day, though,” said Mr Lewisham “Isn’t it?”

She agreed with him “Isn’t it?” she said

And then Mr Bonover passed, forehead tight reefed so to speak, and lipsimpressively compressed Mr Lewisham raised his mortar-board, and to hisastonishment Mr Bonover responded with a markedly formal salute—mockclerical hat sweeping circuitously—and the regard of a searching, disapprovingeye, and so passed Lewisham was overcome with astonishment at thisimprovement on the nod of their ordinary commerce And so this terribleincident terminated for the time

He felt a momentary gust of indignation After all, why should Bonover oranyone interfere with his talking to a girl if he chose? And for all he knew theymight have been properly introduced By young Frobisher, say Nevertheless,Lewisham’s spring-tide mood relapsed into winter He was, he felt, singularlystupid for the rest of their conversation, and the delightful feeling of enterprisethat had hitherto inspired and astonished him when talking to her had shrivelledbeyond contempt He was glad—positively glad—when things came to an end

At the park gates she held out her hand “I’m afraid I have interrupted yourreading,” she said

“Not a bit,” said Mr Lewisham, warming slightly “I don’t know when I’ve

“It was—a breach of etiquette, I am afraid, my speaking to you, but I did sowant to thank you ”

He reached his lodging at last to find Mrs Munday halfway through dinner

“You get them books of yours,” said Mrs Munday, who took a motherlyinterest in him, “and you read and you read, and you take no account of time.And now you’ll have to eat your dinner half cold, and no time for it to settleproper before you goes off to school It’s ruination to a stummik—such ways.”

(“Hoity toity!” said Mrs Monday under her breath.)

Mr Bonover, having fully matured a Hint suitable for the occasion, dropped it

in the afternoon, while Lewisham was superintending cricket practice He made

a few remarks about the prospects of the first eleven by way of introduction, andLewisham agreed with him that Frobisher i looked like shaping very well thisseason

A pause followed and the headmaster hummed “By-the-bye,” he said, as ifmaking conversation and still watching the play; “I, ah,—understood that you,

ah—were a stranger to Whortley.”

“Yes,” said Lewisham, “that’s so.”

“You have made friends in the neighbourhood?”

Lewisham was troubled with a cough, and his ears—those confounded ears—brightened, “Yes,” he said, recovering, “Oh yes Yes, I have.”

“Local people, I presume.”

“Well, no Not exactly.” The brightness spread from Lewisham’s ears over hisface

“I saw you,” said Bonover, “talking to a young lady in the avenue Her face

was somehow quite familiar to me Who was she?”

Should he say she was a friend of the Frobishers? In that case Bonover, in hisinsidious amiable way, might talk to the Frobisher parents and make thingsdisagreeable for her “She was,” said Lewisham, flushing deeply with the stress

on his honesty and dropping his voice to a mumble, “a a an old friend of mymother’s In fact, I met her once at Salisbury.”

“Where?”

“Salisbury.”

“And her name?”

“Smith,” said Lewisham, a little hastily, and repenting the lie even as it left his

“Damn!” said Mr Lewisham “Oh!—damn!”—a most objectionable

expression and rare with him in those days He had half a mind to follow thehead-master and ask him if he doubted his word It was only too evident whatthe answer would be

He stood for a minute undecided, then turned on his heel and marchedhomeward with savage steps His muscles quivered as he walked, and his facetwitched The tumult of his mind settled at last into angry indignation

“Confound him!” said Mr Lewisham, arguing the matter out with the

bedroom furniture “Why the devil can’t he mind his own business?”

“Mind your own business, sir!” shouted Mr Lewisham at the wash-handstand “Confound you, sir, mind your own business!”

The wash-hand stand did

“You overrate your power, sir,” said Mr Lewisham, a little mollified.

“Understand me! I am my own master out of school.”

Nevertheless, for four days and some hours after Mr Bonover’s Hint, Mr.Lewisham so far observed its implications as to abandon open-air study andstruggle with diminishing success to observe the spirit as well as the letter of histime-table prescriptions For the most part he fretted at accumulating tasks, didthem with slipshod energy or looked out of window The Career constituentinsisted that to meet and talk to this girl again meant reproof, worry, interferencewith his work for his matriculation, the destruction of all “Discipline,” and hesaw the entire justice of the insistence It was nonsense this being in love; therewasn’t such a thing as love outside of trashy novelettes And forthwith his mindwent off at a tangent to her eyes under the shadow of her hat brim, and had to belugged back by main force On Thursday when he was returning from school hesaw her far away down the street, and hurried in to avoid her, lookingostentatiously in the opposite direction But that was a turning-point Shameovertook him On Friday his belief in love was warm and living again, and hisheart full of remorse for laggard days

On Saturday morning his preoccupation with her was so vivid that it distractedhim even while he was teaching that most teachable subject, algebra, and by theend of the school hours the issue was decided and the Career in headlong rout.That afternoon he would go, whatever happened, and see her and speak to heragain The thought of Bonover arose only to be dismissed And besides—

Bonover took a siesta early in the afternoon

Yes, he would go out and find her and speak to her Nothing should stop him.Once that decision was taken his imagination became riotous with things hemight say, attitudes he might strike, and a multitude of vague fine dreams abouther He would say this, he would say that, his mind would do nothing but circleround this wonderful pose of lover What a cur he had been to hide from her so

as a cruel imposition For a fateful moment he trembled on the brink ofacquiescence In a flash came a vision of the long duty of the afternoon—shepossibly packing for Clapham all the while He turned white Mr Bonoverwatched his face

“I’m sorry,” said Mr Lewisham, still resolute, and making a mental note thatBonover would be playing croquet

“You don’t play croquet by any chance?” asked Bonover

“No,” said Lewisham, “I haven’t an idea.”

“If Mr Dunkerley had asked you? ” persisted Bonover, knowing Lewisham’srespect for etiquette

“Oh! it wasn’t on that account,” said Lewisham, and Bonover with eyebrowsstill raised and a general air of outraged astonishment left him standing there,white and stiff, and wondering at his extraordinary temerity

As soon as school was dismissed Lewisham made a gaol-delivery of hisoutstanding impositions, and hurried back to his lodgings, to spend the time untilhis dinner was ready—Well? It seems hardly fair, perhaps, to Lewisham to tellthis; it is doubtful, indeed, whether a male novelist’s duty to his sex should notrestrain him, but, as the wall in the shadow by the diamond-framed window

insisted, “Magna est veritas et prevalebit.” Mr Lewisham brushed his hair with

elaboration, and ruffled it picturesquely, tried the effect of all his ties andselected a white one, dusted his boots with an old pocket-handkerchief, changedhis trousers because the week-day pair was minutely frayed at the heels, andinked the elbows of his coat where the stitches were a little white And, to be stillmore intimate, he studied his callow appearance in the glass from various points

of view, and decided that his nose might have been a little smaller withadvantage

Directly after dinner he went out, and by the shortest path to the allotmentlane, telling himself he did not care if he met Bonover forthwith in the street Hedid not know precisely what he intended to do, but he was quite clear that hemeant to see the girl he had met in the avenue He knew he should see her Asense of obstacles merely braced him and was pleasurable He went up the stonesteps out of the lane to the stile that overlooked the Frobishers, the stile fromwhich he had watched the Frobisher bedroom There he seated himself with hisarms, folded, in full view of the house

That was at ten minutes to two At twenty minutes to three he was still sittingthere, but his hands were deep in his jacket pockets, and he was scowling andkicking his foot against the step with an impatient monotony His needlessglasses had been thrust into his waistcoat pocket—where they remainedthroughout the afternoon—and his cap was tilted a little back from his foreheadand exposed a wisp of hair One or two people had gone down the lane, and hehad pretended not to see them, and a couple of hedge-sparrows chasing eachother along the side of the sunlit, wind-rippled field had been his chiefentertainment It is unaccountable, no doubt, but he felt angry with her as thetime crept on His expression lowered

He heard someone going by in the lane behind him He would not look round

—it annoyed him to think of people seeing him in this position His onceeminent discretion, though overthrown, still made muffled protests at theafternoon’s enterprise The feet down the lane stopped close at hand.

“Stare away,” said Lewisham between his teeth And then began mysteriousnoises, a violent rustle of hedge twigs, a something like a very light foot-tapping.Curiosity boarded Lewisham and carried him after the briefest struggle Helooked round, and there she was, her back to him, reaching after the spikyblossoming blackthorn that crested the opposite hedge Remarkable accident!She had not seen him!

In a moment Lewisham’s legs were flying over the stile He went down thesteps in the bank with such impetus that it carried him up into the prickly bushesbeside her “Allow me,” he said, too excited to see she was not astonished

“Mr Lewisham!” she said in feigned surprise, and stood away to give himroom at the blackthorn

“Which spike will you have?” he cried, overjoyed “The whitest? The highest?Any!”

“That piece,” she chose haphazard, “with the black spike sticking out from it.”

A mass of snowy blossom it was against the April sky, and Lewisham,straggling for it—it was by no means the most accessible—saw with fantasticsatisfaction a lengthy scratch flash white on his hand, and turn to red

“Higher up the lane,” he said, descending triumphant and breathless, “there isblackthorn This cannot compare for a moment ”

She laughed and looked at him as he stood there flushed, his eyes triumphant,with an unpremeditated approval In church, in the gallery, with his faceforeshortened, he had been effective in a way, but this was different “Show me,”she said, though she knew this was the only place for blackthorn for a mile ineither direction

“I knew I should see you,” he said, by way of answer, “I felt sure I should see

you to-day.”

“It was our last chance almost,” she answered with as frank a quality ofavowal “I’m going home to London on Monday.”

“Yes I have got a situation You did not know that I was a shorthand clerk andtypewriter, did you? I am I have just left the school, the Grogram School Andnow there is an old gentleman who wants an amanuensis.”

“So you know shorthand?” said he “That accounts for the stylographic pen.Those lines were written I have them still.”

She smiled and raised her eyebrows “Here,” said Mr Lewisham, tapping hisbreast-pocket

“This lane,” he said—their talk was curiously inconsecutive—“some wayalong this lane, over the hill and down, there is a gate, and that goes—I mean, itopens into the path that runs along the river bank Have you been?”

on the water, I don’t know the names of them, but they’re fine May I carry

that branch of blossom?”

As he took it their hands touched momentarily and there came another ofthose significant gaps

“Look at those clouds,” said Lewisham abruptly, remembering the remark hehad been about to make and waving the white froth of blackthorn, “And look atthe blue between them.”

“It’s perfectly splendid Of all the fine weather the best has been kept for now

And off these two young people went together in a highly electrical state—tothe infinite astonishment of Mrs Frobisher, who was looking out of the atticwindow—stepping out manfully and finding the whole world lit and splendid fortheir entertainment The things they discovered and told each other thatafternoon down by the river!—that spring was wonderful, young leavesbeautiful, bud scales astonishing things, and clouds dazzling and stately!—with

an air of supreme originality! And their naove astonishment to find one another

in agreement upon these novel delights! It seemed to them quite outside the play

of accident that they should have met each other

They went by the path that runs among the trees along the river bank, and shemust needs repent and wish to take the lower one, the towing path, before theyhad gone three hundred yards So Lewisham had to find a place fit for herdescent, where a friendly tree proffered its protruding roots as a convenientbalustrade, and down she clambered with her hand in his

Then a water-vole washing his whiskers gave occasion for a sudden touching

of hands and the intimate confidence of whispers and silence together Afterwhich Lewisham essayed to gather her a marsh mallow at the peril, as it wasjudged, of his life, and gained it together with a bootful of water And at the gate

by the black and shiny lock, where the path breaks away from the river, sheovercame him by an unexpected feat, climbing gleefully to the top rail with thesupport of his hand, and leaping down, a figure of light and grace, to the ground.They struck boldly across the meadows, which were gay with lady’s smock,and he walked, by special request, between her and three matronly cows—feeling as Perseus might have done when he fended off the sea-monster And so

by the mill, and up a steep path to Immering Common Across the meadowsLewisham had broached the subject of her occupation “And are you reallygoing away from here to be an amanuensis?” he said, and started her upon thetheme of herself, a theme she treated with a specialist’s enthusiasm They dealtwith it by the comparative methods and neither noticed the light was out of thesky until the soft feet of the advancing shower had stolen right upon them

“Look!” said he “Yonder! A shed,” and they ran together She ran laughing,and yet swiftly and lightly He pulled her through the hedge by both hands, andreleased her skirt from an amorous bramble, and so they came into a little blackshed in which a rusty harrow of gigantic proportions sheltered He noted how

She sat down on the harrow and hesitated “I must take off my hat,” she said,

“that rain will spot it,” and so he had a chance of admiring the sincerity of hercurls—not that he had ever doubted them She stooped over her hat, pocket-handkerchief in hand, daintily wiping off the silvery drops He stood up at theopening of the shed and looked at the country outside through the veil of the softvehemence of the April shower

“There’s room for two on this harrow,” she said

He made inarticulate sounds of refusal, and then came and sat down besideher, close beside her, so that he was almost touching her He felt a fantasticdesire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and overcame the madness by aneffort “I don’t even know your name,” he said, taking refuge from his whirlingthoughts in conversation

The whispering of the rain about them sank and died, and the sunlight struckvividly across the distant woods beyond Immering Just then they had fallen on asilence again that was full of daring thoughts for Mr Lewisham He moved hisarm suddenly and placed it so that it was behind her on the frame of the harrow

“Surely,” he said, only slowly realising what this parting meant “But must you?I—I want to talk to you.”

“You seem to think,” she said, forcing a laugh, “that I live without eating anddrinking.”

“I have wanted to talk to you so much The first time I saw you At first Idared not I did not know you would let me talk And now, just as I am—happy, you are going.”

He stopped abruptly Her eyes were downcast “No,” she said, tracing a curvewith the point of her shoe “No I am not going.”

Lewisham restrained an impulse to shout “You will come to Immering?” hecried, and as they went along the narrow path through the wet grass, he began totell her with simple frankness how he cared for her company, “I would notchange this,” he said, casting about for an offer to reject, “for—anything in theworld I shall not be back for duty I don’t care I don’t care what happens solong as we have this afternoon.”

“Nor I,” she said

“Thank you for coming,” he said in an outburst of gratitude.—“Oh, thank youfor coming,” and held out his hand She took it and pressed it, and so they went

on hand in hand until the village street was reached Their high resolve to playtruant at all costs had begotten a wonderful sense of fellowship “I can’t call youMiss Henderson,” he said “You know I can’t You know I must have yourChristian name.”

“Ethel,” she told him

“Ethel,” he said and looked at her, gathering courage as he did so “Ethel,” herepeated “It is a pretty name But no name is quite pretty enough for you, Ethel

dear.”

The little shop in Immering lay back behind a garden full of wallflowers, andwas kept by a very fat and very cheerful little woman, who insisted on regardingthem as brother and sister, and calling them both “dearie.” These pointsconceded she gave them an admirable tea of astonishing cheapness Lewishamdid not like the second condition very much, because it seemed to touch a little

on his latest enterprise But the tea and the bread and butter and the whort jamwere like no food on earth There were wallflowers, heavy scented, in a jug uponthe table, and Ethel admired them, and when they set out again the little old ladyinsisted on her taking a bunch with her

It was after they left Immering that this ramble, properly speaking, becamescandalous The sun was already a golden ball above the blue hills in the west—

it turned our two young people into little figures of flame—and yet, instead ofgoing homeward, they took the Wentworth road that plunges into the Forshawwoods Behind them the moon, almost full, hung in the blue sky above the tree-tops, ghostly and indistinct, and slowly gathered to itself such light as the settingsun left for it in the sky

Going out of Immering they began to talk of the future And for the veryyoung lover there is no future but the immediate future

“You must write to me,” he said, and she told him she wrote such silly letters.

“But I shall have reams to write to you,” he told her

“How are you to write to me?” she asked, and they discussed a new obstaclebetween them It would never do to write home—never She was sure of thatwith an absolute assurance “My mother—” she said and stopped

That prohibition cut him, for at that time he had the makings of a voluminousletter-writer Yet it was only what one might expect The whole world was

Perhaps she might find some place where letters might be sent to her? Yet thatseemed to her deceitful

So these two young people wandered on, full of their discovery of love, andyet so full too of the shyness of adolescence that the word “Love” never passedtheir lips that day Yet as they talked on, and the kindly dusk gathered aboutthem, their speech and their hearts came very close together But their speechwould seem so threadbare, written down in cold blood, that I must not put ithere To them it was not threadbare

When at last they came down the long road into Whortley, the silent treeswere black as ink and the moonlight made her face pallid and wonderful, and hereyes shone like stars She still carried the blackthorn from which most of theblossoms had fallen The fragrant wallflowers were fragrant still And far away,softened by the distance, the Whortley band, performing publicly outside thevicarage for the first time that year, was playing with unctuous slowness asentimental air I don’t know if the reader remembers it that, favourite melody ofthe early eighties:—

“Sweet dreamland faces, passing to and fro, (pum, pum)

Bring back to Mem’ry days of long ago-o-o-oh,”

was the essence of it, very slow and tender and with an accompaniment ofpum, pum Pathetically cheerful that pum, pum, hopelessly cheerful indeedagainst the dirge of the air, a dirge accentuated by sporadic vocalisation But toyoung people things come differently

“I love music,” she said.

“So do I,” said he

They came on down the steepness of West Street They walked athwart themetallic and leathery tumult of sound into the light cast by the little circle ofyellow lamps Several people saw them and wondered what the boys and girlswere coming to nowadays, and one eye-witness even subsequently describedtheir carriage as “brazen.” Mr Lewisham was wearing his mortarboard cap ofoffice—there was no mistaking him They passed the Proprietary School andsaw a yellow picture framed and glazed, of Mr Bonover taking duty for hisaberrant assistant master And outside the Frobisher house at last they partedperforce

She hesitated Then suddenly she darted towards him He felt her hands uponhis shoulders, her lips soft and warm upon his cheek, and before he could takehold of her she had eluded him, and had flitted into the shadow of the house

“Good-bye,” came her sweet, clear voice out of the shadow, and while he yethesitated an answer, the door opened

He saw her, black in the doorway, heard some indistinct words, and then thedoor closed and he was alone in the moonlight, his cheek still glowing from herlips

So ended Mr Lewisham’s first day with Love

And after the day of Love came the days of Reckoning Mr Lewisham wasastonished—overwhelmed almost—by that Reckoning, as it slowly and steadilyunfolded itself The wonderful emotions of Saturday carried him throughSunday, and he made it up with the neglected Schema by assuring it that She washis Inspiration, and that he would work for Her a thousand times better than hecould possibly work for himself That was certainly not true, and indeed hefound himself wondering whither the interest had vanished out of his theologicalexamination of Butler’s Analogy The Frobishers were not at church for eitherservice He speculated rather anxiously why?

Monday dawned coldly and clearly—a Herbert Spencer of a day—and hewent to school sedulously assuring himself there was nothing to apprehend Dayboys were whispering in the morning apparently about him, and Frobisher ii

was in great request Lewisham overheard a fragment “My mother was in a

wax,” said Frobisher ii

At twelve came an interview with Bonover, and voices presently rising inangry altercation and audible to Senior-assistant Dunkerley through the closedstudy door Then Lewisham walked across the schoolroom, staring straightbefore him, his cheeks very bright

Thereby Dunkerley’s mind was prepared for the news that came the nextmorning over the exercise books “When?” said Dunkerley

“End of next term,” said Lewisham

“About this girl that’s been staying at the Frobishers?”

“Yes.”

“She’s a pretty bit of goods But it will mess up your matric next June,” saidDunkerley

“That’s what I’m sorry for.”

“It’s scarcely to be expected he’ll give you leave to attend the exam ”